Due to the high volume of requests, for the first time ever the Nation Network will launch a hockey pool open to all of our faithful readers! Details are after the jump.

A little further down the page, every entrant will be asked to construct their own team – 14 forwards, seven defensemen, and four goaltenders (we cheated a little on the number of goaltenders because we didn’t want to leave certain players out). The scoring will be explained in each section, and it’s going to be slightly different than what most will be used to, so please keep it in mind when making selections.

Forwards

Scoring:

Goal: Worth 1.25 points

Assist: Worth 1 point

Plus/Minus: Worth 1 point

Example: Last season’s Hart Trophy winner was Corey Perry. He recorded 50 goals, 48 assists and a plus-9 rating. If he matches those totals exactly, he will be worth 119.5 points – 62.5 points for goals + 48 points for assists + nine points for plus/minus.

Why are goals valued more? It’s simple: goals are rarer in the NHL than assists, and so players that score them should get a little extra consideration.

Please pick one player from each category below:

Position

Player

Player

Player

Player

Player

First Line 1

Evgeni Malkin

Alexander Ovechkin

Corey Perry

Daniel Sedin

Martin St. Louis

First Line 2

Nicklas Backstrom

Ryan Getzlaf

Anze Kopitar

Henrik Sedin

Steven Stamkos

First Line 3

Loui Eriksson

Marian Gaborik

Marian Hossa

Patrick Marleau

Alexander Semin

Second Line 1

Jarome Iginla

Ilya Kovalchuk

Rick Nash

Bobby Ryan

Henrik Zetterberg

Second Line 2

Pavel Datsyuk

Brad Richards

Eric Staal

Joe Thornton

Jonathan Toews

Second Line 3

Taylor Hall

Dany Heatley

Patrick Kane

Jeff Skinner

Thomas Vanek

Third Line 1

Daniel Briere

Jeff Carter

Shane Doan

Phil Kessel

Zach Parise

Third Line 2

Sidney Crosby

Matt Duchene

Vincent Lecavalier

Jason Spezza

John Tavares

Third Line 3

Daniel Alfredsson

Jordan Eberle

Patrik Elias

Claude Giroux

Teemu Selanne

Fourth Line 1

Alex Burrows

Martin Havlat

Brendan Morrow

Patrick Sharp

Chris Stewart

Fourth Line 2

Logan Couture

Ryan Kesler

Mikko Koivu

David Krejci

Mike Richards

Fourth Line 3

Pierre-Marc Bouchard

Ales Hemsky

Jaromir Jagr

Ryan Smyth

Alex Tanguay

13th Forward:

David Backes

Mikhail Grabovski

Mike Ribeiro

Derek Roy

Paul Stastny

14th Forward:

Cody Hodgson

Ryan Johansen

Nazem Kadri

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins

Brayden Schenn

Defensemen

Scoring:

Goal: Worth 1.25 points

Assist: Worth 1 point

Plus/Minus: Worth 1 point

Example: Last season’s Norris Trophy winner was Nicklas Lidstrom. He recorded 16 goals, 46 assists and a minus-2 rating. If he matches those totals exactly, he will be worth 64 points – 20 points for goals + 46 points for assists - two points for plus/minus.

Please pick one player from each category below:

Position

Player

Player

Player

Player

Player

Defense 1:

Dan Boyle

Mike Green

Nicklas Lidstrom

Lubomir Visnovsky

Shea Weber

Defense 2:

Dustin Byfuglien

Drew Doughty

Duncan Keith

Kris Letang

Dion Phaneuf

Defense 3:

Brian Campbell

Tobias Enstrom

Alex Goligoski

Tomas Kaberle

Marek Zidlicky

Defense 4:

Brent Burns

Alexander Edler

John-Michael Liles

Mark Streit

P.K. Subban

Defense 5:

Christian Ehrhoff

Cam Fowler

Sergei Gonchar

Erik Karlsson

Tyler Myers

Defense 6:

Zdeno Chara

Joe Corvo

Mark Giordano

Erik Johnson

Keith Yandle

Defense 7:

John Carlson

Andrei Markov

Chris Pronger

Ryan Whitney

James Wisniewski

Goaltenders

Scoring:

Shutouts: Worth 5 points

Save percentage: Worth 2.5 points for every 0.001 above 0.900.

Goaltender must play in at least 10 games to qualify - if he fails to meet the threshold he'll be worth a basic value of 50 points.

Example: Last season’s Vezina Trophy winner was Tim Thomas. He recorded nine shutouts and a 0.938 SV%. If he matches those totals exactly, he will be worth 140 points – 95 points for save percentage and 45 points for his shutouts.

Why are goalies valued this way? For years, hockey pools have based goaltender value on wins and goals against average. The problem is that these are heavily team-based measures – good goalies on bad teams are constantly overlooked because they rack up the losses and face a lot of shots, driving up their GAA. It’s impossible to remove team effects entirely, but under this system goalies get credit mostly for their save percentage. The shutout category recognizes a) goalies that play a lot and b) goalies that put together perfect games.

Please pick one player from each category below:

Position

Player

Player

Player

Player

Player

Goalie 1:

Marc-Andre Fleury

Henrik Lundqvist

Roberto Luongo

Carey Price

Tim Thomas

Goalie 2:

Ryan Miller

Antti Niemi

Pekka Rinne

Tomas Vokoun

Cam Ward

Goalie 3:

Ilya Bryzgalov

Corey Crawford

Jimmy Howard

Miikka Kiprusoff

Jonathan Quick

Goalie 4:

Martin Brodeur

Devan Dubnyk

Jonas Hiller

Kari Lehtonen

Semyon Varlamov

Entering

To make recording everyone’s entries a little easier, I’m going to ask entries be formatted in a specific way. IMPORTANT: ENTRIES NOT FORMATTED IN THIS WAY WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. For each set of players, please record just the last name, followed by a dash, and please do so in the order presented above.

Example: Aaron A. Aardvark loves the alphabet (and alliteration), for obvious reasons, so he decides to pick the player with the highest name each time. His entry would look like this:

This contest will close promptly at 7:00 PM EST on Thursday, October 6 – the starting point for the NHL regular season. Please have your entry in by that time by placing it in the comments section below.

Mandatory Product Placement

Have we mentioned that the Nation Network offers a high-end hockey pool guide, specifically designed to help in situations like this? Have we also mentioned that at its current price - $5.00 – no other comprehensive fantasy hockey guide is less expensive? Still not convinced? The link above also includes a sample of what is included with the Nation Network Draft Primer.

Prizes?

Naturally, for a big, season-long contest like this there must be prizes, right? I went down to Wanye Manor (pictured above) to ask for prizes from the Nation Network’s grand poobah himself. He reacted poorly, throwing a discarded coffee cup at me and taking off down the street. Eventually he stopped running, and turned to talk to me:

Me: Please, Wanye, can we have some prizes?

His Excellency Baron Wanye Von Gretz IV: Of course! Take anything you like out of the top bag in my shopping cart!

We will continue to negotiate with Wanye. Rest assured that prizes will be included, once we convince him to hand over something more value than the black milk crate (‘What do you mean nobody will want it? Look how sturdy it is!’) that he originally wanted to give to the first-place entrant.

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet, the Edmonton Journal and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.

(Sorry Calgary, I didn't mean to use intelligent acronyms that require further insight to comprehend the foundation for the qeury, however if you'll note, my question is almost monosyllabic, like the word that is most familiar to Calgary...